Rami Malek on 'Mr. Robot' ending after Season 4: 'I'm of course sad'

Rami Malek knew well in advance that Mr. Robot, the techno-thriller that turned him into a bona fide star and scored him an Emmy, would be coming to a close after only four seasons. “I tried to not let the cat out of the bag,” the 37-year-old actor told Yahoo Entertainment (watch above) about last week’s announcement that the show would wrap in 2019.

“I’m of course sad. It’s a character that’s so dear to me and [I] love.”

Series creator Sam Esmail clearly had no intention of letting the show, about a hacker with social disorders (Malek) recruited into the anti-corporate “fsociety” run by Christian Slater’s eponymous anarchist, jump the shark. But even the casual observer would know the show’s short run isn’t great news for USA Network. In many ways Mr. Robot was the network’s golden goose, legitimizing USA as a home for top-tier programming and logging them into the awards circuit in the process.

“The studio would love to see it go on even further,” Malek said. ‘But Sam Esmail, the creator and executive producer, has a finite story he’s got to tell, and I’m on board with that.”

Esmail is already onto his next project, with the upcoming Amazon Prime series Homecoming set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday. And Malek has some more stories to tell too, beginning with November’s Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, in which he stars as frontman Freddie Mercury, and which he stopped by Yahoo with co-stars Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, and Lucy Boynton and producer Graham King to promote.

“I get some great characters that I have to let go of at times, and Freddie Mercury is also going to be even more difficult,” said Malek, before catching himself. “As difficult.”